Sammo Hung Kam-po

Biography

Sammo Hung Kam-po is a Hong Kong actor, director, action choreographer and film producer, born on 7 January 1952, raised in Hong Kong, with ancestral roots in Changzhou, Jiangsu province. He began his career at age nine as a child actor under the stage name "Chu Yuen-lung", then studied Peking opera under master Yu Chan-yuen at age ten, becoming the eldest of the "Seven Little Fortunes" with the stage name "Yuen Lung". In 1971 he joined the Golden Harvest film company, appearing as an action choreographer in "The Golden Sword". He directed his first film "Executioners from Shaolin" in 1977, and achieved great success in the 1970s and 1980s with action comedies such as "Knockabout" and "My Lucky Stars", for which he won Best Actor at the 2nd Hong Kong Film Awards. He founded production companies like Bo Ho and D&B and produced commercially successful films including "Painted Faces", for which he won Best Actor at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival and the Hong Kong Film Awards. He worked in the United States on the TV series "Martial Law" in the 1990s, then returned to cinema with films like "Kill Zone" ("SPL") and "Ip Man 2", for which he won Best Supporting Actor at the Asian Film Awards. He established the "Sammo Hung Film Studio" in Shanghai in 2016, and in 2024 received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 42nd Hong Kong Film Awards in recognition of his contributions to leading and advancing Hong Kong action cinema.